Programme+Planning

**NOTE: This page needs updating!**

English in the New Zealand Curriculum states that reading and writing are central to any English teaching programme but that teachers should incorporate all three strands.

An effective unit/context of work has the following characteristics: • it is built on what students can do and readies them for new learning • it provides a variety of new and challenging experiences • it identifies a number of specific language outcomes to be achieved • it gives students some say in planning and goal-setting wherever possible

The common foci for a unit/context of learning are: • genre (e.g. a novel study) • theme (e.g. myths and legends) • language situation (e.g. persuasive language) • a curriculum strand or sub-strand (e.g. speaking)

With a genre focus, a particular text type (e.g. a novel) is selected for the purpose of enabling students to critically appreciate its ideas and its related conventions of style, structure and layout. A critical appreciation can be developed through close and wide reading, writing or both. This focus has traditionally been encouraged by English departmental provision of class sets of texts.

With a thematic focus, a particular area of interest is selected by the teacher or negotiated with the class as an umbrella under which a range of language experiences and texts can be gathered (e.g. ‘Me and My World’). Resources with a thematic approach are available, especially at Years 9 and 10.

With a language approach, the teacher selects or negotiates a situation which has the potential to yield a rich exploration of language (e.g. the language of persuasion).

The following should be read in conjunction with the unit/context planning sheet below:

• Choose a Central Focus For Years 9 and 10, the junior scheme provides a framework for this. At senior level, the relevant prescriptions will guide you. (e.g. Writing for Publication)

• Achievement Objectives Which curriculum achievement objectives will be covered. (e.g. Transactional Writing)

• Identify Specific Learning Outcomes Here you identify your purpose in designing the unit by specifying what you want your students to do or learn. (e.g. one learning outcome may be that the student will be able to write a formal letter expressing a point of view)

• Teaching and Learning Activities Select the best activities to gauge prior knowledge, introduce the topic, provide variety, enable skills to be developed, capture student interest. (e.g. analysis of models, draft writing, peer conferencing, exploring the language of formal letters, debates etc.)

• Assessment Tasks What diagnostic, formative and summative assessment tasks can be built into the unit to collect achievement information? A specific assessment/marking schedule should be developed, reflecting the relevant achievement objectives and assessing whether the learning outcomes have been achieved. NB An assessment task may be formative for some students and summative for others, depending on their skill level i.e. some students need more opportunities to develop skills than others.

• Assessment Schedules An assessment schedule, or marking schedule spells out in some detail what students need to do in order to achieve a particular achievement objective and learning outcome. It is clear that the achievement objectives of the curriculum are very generalised. In practice, classroom activities will be focused on only one or two aspects of an objective at any one time, so a more exact text-specific or task-specific schedule needs to be developed. The next section of this scheme details this process. (See section 7)

• Resources These can include: texts, handouts, equipment, tapes, software, technologies, facilities, visitors etc. Check the departmental box files and resource shelves.

The following unit/context planning sheet is to be used at Years 9 and 10 and filed with the teacher in charge of junior English.

[See following examples – insert appropriate planner]

[|Sample Unit Planner.doc]

